Improvise, Overcome, Adapt

About

The Starting Line…MRV#1

Midnight Run Viera is a Scavenger hunt game that was designed in 2010 for the Digital Arts, and Business and Finance Academies at Viera High School. The concept for Midnight Run Viera actually came from a movie I grew up with in the early 80’s called Midnight Madness. Then in 2009 I actually participated in a similar game, which cemented my interest in running the game for the students. It was further developed while watching the “rally” type games on television right now, like “The Amazing Race” and “Survivor.” While talking about team building events for the ADAM academy with the other teachers, we got the idea to try this event as a way to test the kids ability to problem solve and work in small teams. My recent participation in this sort of race, shaped the remanded of the meeting. It took about 6 months to come up with the first game. I had plenty of help from family, friends and faculty members, and a date was set for a few weeks after school started. We are currently on the 8th installment of the game, ready in November of 2017.

The rules for Midnight Run Viera are simple, purposely vague, and in some cases, open to interpretation; to encourage creativity from the student teams. Each part of the game is assigned point values that award or penalize teams accordingly to their effort or lack thereof. The combination of creative problem solving makes for a challenging event that is designed to test the team’s intelligence, endurance, determination, geographical knowledge, creativity, and team work.

So far we have had great success in putting on the event and participation maxed out the last game at 14 teams of 6 players. We are continuing to try different formats and different themes to keep it fresh. My hope is to create a sustainable tradition that the Academies of Viera can continue long after I am gone.